Thursday, August 23, 2007

(from MZone wire reports) Los Angeles, CA -- The AP Top 25 and USA TODAY Coaches Poll were both suspended from school for a week after it was discovered they copied each other's preseason poll. The cheating was exposed by their 8th grade civics class teacher, Herb Jankowicz.

"It was so obvious," said Jankowicz, who gives the poll assignment each year. "I knew it as soon as I saw the AP Top 25 and USA TODAY preseason polls. They each have the exact same teams in them. Not 15 out of 25, not 20 out of 25, hell, not even 24 out of 25 -- the exact same teams. Sure, the actual ranking may vary a spot or three, but there is not one difference in the teams listed. Am I supposed to believe that's a coincidence?"

"Here, take a look at this," Jankowicz said, producing the two polls for this reporter side-by-side. "They both have Cal at #12, Georgia at #13, Tennessee at #15, Rutgers at #16, TCU at #22 and Texas A&M at #25. In all my years of teaching, I've never seen that happen before. In a preseason poll, before a single down has been played. I mean, I can understand the top five or ten teams being the same since everybody has an idea who that's going to be. But to both pick the Horned Frogs out of thin air and place them at #22 strains credulity."

When asked who he thought cheated off whom, Jankowicz didn't hesitate. "I think the AP Top 25 cribbed off USA TODAY," he said. "USA TODAY turned their poll in long before the AP did. But since neither of them admitted to the cheating, I had to suspend them both."

In high school I once had a buddy of mine steal my test paper right in the middle of a test. He didn't do it quietly, either, and when the teacher looked up she caught me staring at her - wild-eyed - with this shocked, shit eating grin on my face.

I had to spend the next 10 minutes covering my desk, pretending to write, and poking my buddy in the back to get him to give me back my damn test paper.

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